


Paper Planes

by Chipper_Daily



Category: Invader Zim
Genre: Alternate Universe, Coming of Age, First Crush, Idiots in Love, M/M, My Poor Insane Son, One-Sided Attraction, Real Science!Dib AU, Space Husbands, We're playing hard and fast with the science in this one folks
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-17
Updated: 2018-11-25
Packaged: 2019-08-03 08:34:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 15,522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16322840
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chipper_Daily/pseuds/Chipper_Daily
Summary: Where did ZiM get a motorcycle anyway?(AKA that one time Dib caught some feelings and broke Time and Space.)





	1. Meet Cute

_Hello again, friend of a friend, I knew you when_

_Our common goal was waiting for the world to end_

\- Black Sheep // Metric

 

 

In his dream he had been not-quite-flying, not-quite-falling, gazing up, up, up, the air itself dancing with colour beneath a sky of unfamiliar constellations.

It was kind of a nice change of pace. Usually the only dreams he remembered were the ones where he was either running or drowning.

       “Uhhh… Dib? Do you have a quarter I could borrow?” He turned from staring out through the smudged glass of the convenience store door to meet gentle brown eyes that were spaced just a smidge too far apart. Gretchen gazed at him imploringly while the teenage clerk leaned heavily on her elbow and oozed apathy, a large Suck Monkey perched on the counter between the two. He sighed and rummaged through the pocket of his white lab coat.

Nothing ever happened in his hometown. It was why his father had decided to settle down here- it was a nice, unassuming place to raise his children. Really, the only thing the sleepy city had going for it at all was Membrane Labs. The crime rate was low, the neighbours were quiet, the weather was mild, and every day was exactly the same.

Dib was so bored he wanted to scream.

Not that working with his dad was _bad,_ far from it really. Ever since he had given up on his embarrassing childhood obsession with the paranormal his relationship with his father had improved significantly. ‘Real’ science was easy, it came naturally to him. It was just… boring. School had always been a bit of a joke for him, and it became even easier once his peers eased off on actively bullying him after he’d eased off on being the cringy weird kid who thought there was a ghost in the third floor bathroom.

There were no ghosts though, or demons, or vampires- there was only a desperately lonely boy who was too smart for his own good looking for something fantastical in a mundane world. Just another twitchy, socially awkward kid who wished he was more special then he actually was.

His hometown was good for that too- it had to be THE most mundane place on the entire planet. It was grounding in the most soul destroying of ways.

More and more he found himself floating, untethered, through a fog of apathy. Sometimes he wondered if one day he might just float away.

The bell above the door jingled as Dib and Gretchen stepped out of the convenience store into the humid summer afternoon. They walked in blissful silence, Dib lost in thought and Gretchen quietly trailing a few steps behind him as they made their way back to the Lab. His shy classmate had won an enviable summer internship to train in his father’s engineering department. Dib didn’t have the heart to tell her most of the higher ups just saw her as free labour. At least it would look good on a college application and, later, a resume, right?

To be fair though, he would prefer being ignored to being constantly sucked up to by his father’s employees. Even if his dad would ever let him forget he was the heir to the Membrane empire, his father’s multitudes of underlings certainly wouldn’t. Otherwise he wasn’t much better off then poor Gretchen. Once he started Hi Skool in the fall he would have a serious talk with his dad about putting him on the payroll. (No, he wouldn’t. Dib never actually confronted his father about anything, not anymore. It was easier for everyone that way. But it did make him feel a bit better to pretend.)

       “Hey, Dib?” He blinked behind his thick lenses as his classmate’s soft voice drew him from his thoughts. He turned to find Gretchen had stopped in the middle of the sidewalk a few paces back. Her brows were furrowed as she fidgeted, her kind brown eyes fixed to the trails left by drops of condensation down the side of her slush instead of meeting his. “Do you, um, do you still like scary movies? I know you used to be really into that sort of stuff when we were kids.” She talked with a forced casual air, her long, blunt fingers gripped her cup just a bit too tight. Dib felt his stomach drop when he noticed for the first time that she was wearing mascara, that she’d painted her awkwardly long mouth a pretty, feminine shade of pink that didn’t suit her at all. She was going to ask him on a…

He was about to be asked out on his first date.

The thought should have been exciting, or at the very least it should have been flattering. Three years ago every girl in his class would have preferred chewing off their own arm to being alone with him for a two minute elevator ride. Now here he was, getting asked out on a perfectly normal date by a perfectly normal girl like it was lifted from the page of a perfectly normal coming-of-age story. He may be a bit emotionally stunted, but he wasn’t totally stupid- he’d noticed how she couldn’t hold his gaze if he looked her in the eye, how she blushed and played with her hair, the flimsy excuses to gently squeeze his shoulder or elbow.

Dib liked Gretchen, or he liked her well enough at least. She was a genuinely nice girl, smart, quiet, mostly kept to herself. He hadn’t minded working with her so far. He was sure his dad would like her well enough too and be _delighted_ to do all of the embarrassing dad things he was sure Professor Membrane was just _itching_ to do when his son introduced his first girlfriend. He was sure Gaz wouldn’t particularly care one way or the other as long as they left her alone.

But he wasn’t excited or flattered. He wanted the earth to split open and swallow him whole. Because Gretchen was a genuinely nice girl and Dib liked her well enough and he had absolutely no interest in dating her or anyone else. Now he was going to break her heart over lunch and they were going to have to work together for the rest of the summer.

Or that’s how it was going to play out right up until he was ran over.

Gretchen had noticed first, when her gaze flicked coyly towards the road. That soft, shy look shifted to horror like someone had flicked an internal switch at about the same time the horns and screeching tires started. Dib whipped his attention to the road in time to see an aggressively pink motorcycle rip down the on ramp _going the wrong way_ to cut diagonally across four lanes of oncoming traffic and _jump the curb-_ Dib flung himself out of the way, raw adrenaline springing to action while his brain still sputtered and tried to make sense of what was happening, only for the lunatic driver to twist their bike in the air to strike him with the back tire.

The acrid smell of exhaust and burning rubber flitted through his senses and then he was flying- no, _falling._ White hot sparks exploded behind his eyelids and searing pain ripped the air from his lungs as he hit the asphalt, landing hard on his shoulder and cracking his head against the gravel, the force of the impact sending him rolling helplessly across the convenience store parking lot.

 _“DIB!”_ Gretchen lurched forward, stumbling towards the prone boy stretched out on the pavement, her hands rising to her mouth in horror. A sudden pain shot up her leg and she tripped over something, crashing onto her hands and knees. She caught the spin of what looked like a slime green baseball helmet on the ground at her side out of the corner of her eye before her attention whipped back to the stranger that had just flattened her (maybe, hopefully, someday) boyfriend.

       “HALT WRETCH!” His open palm was outstretched towards her in the universal sign for ‘stop’, his black rubber glove accentuating three long, almost claw-like little fingers. “Can’t you see the pathetic earth-boy is injured? This is a job for a _professional.”_ He turned his… lack of nose up into the air, jutted his clenched fists behind him and goose-stepped towards Dib’s still form, his glossy, black, knee-high boots clicking smartly against the pavement.

Gretchen’s jaw dropped open- was this for real? Was this actually happening? Also did he seriously just _throw his helmet at her?_ Her gaze flicked to the purple trilby perched perfectly on top of a tuft of messy black hair. The helmet he clearly hadn’t been wearing while driving like a maniac, but apparently was carrying around in case he needed to assault someone with something other then his bike.

The stranger came to a stop beside Dib and planted his fists on his hips as he took a moment to evaluate the situation. Then he unceremoniously kicked the teenager over onto his back. Dib’s groan of pain ripped through Gretchen’s stupor and she vaulted to her feet.

       “Are you _crazy?”_ She wasn’t used to yelling but this- this was straight up _madness._

       “Fear not, worm-child, ZiM is a master of your human CPR resuscitation technique.” He waved her off dismissively, like this was not the most insane turn the afternoon could have possibly taken.

Also what?

The stranger- Sim?- turned his attention back down to Dib, stepping one leg easily over the prone boy’s body to plant firmly on his other side.

Master of _what?_

The green-skinned boy dropped heavily to his knees, the sharp crack of bone against asphalt loud enough even Gretchen heard it. It had to have hurt, but the stranger did nothing but readjust his thick, black framed glasses (actually- how were those even staying on his face without ears or a nose?) and squirm where he was literally straddling poor Dib’s waist until he was positioned properly for the next step.

Gretchen’s eyes widened and her mouth dropped open in a silent cry of horror- she had just watched this maniac mow down her childhood crush and now she was being forced to watch as he curled his small hands in the collar of Dib’s lab coat, as he leaned down with a wicked grin, _now_ she was being forced to watch the same maniac steal poor Dib’s _first kiss-!_

Instead of pressing their mouths together as would be expected to, you know, perform CPR, the green skinned boy began to shake Dib by his collar. Violently. And scream.

Dib discovered his collar bone was definitely broken in the rudest manner possible and abruptly resurfaced into consciousness to scream too.

And, because it seemed like the right thing to do, Gretchen started screaming as well.

       “VICTORY!” He pumped both fists in the air, letting Dib’s already abused head crack back against the asphalt.

Dib hissed as more stars danced behind his eyelids- he was pretty sure he had _at least_ a concussion, not to mention the sharp, burning pain consuming his shoulder and making it hard to breath. He feebly tried to reach up with his uninjured arm to touch the back of his head only to have his hand swatted away and a sharp little claw pointed directly into his face.

       “I have saved your life, _Dib-stink._ In repayment for your miserable existence your giant head belongs to ZiM now!”

       “Wha-?” He managed to squeak before he found himself trying to shield his eyes from some sort of small camera/flashlight/corkscrew thing that ZiM had pulled out of his backpack. The strange boy’s malicious cackle was abruptly cut short with a meaty thunk and an indignant squawk as he was knocked off of Dib with his own helmet.  

       “Get off of him, you _freak!”_ Gretchen snarled and stomped her foot down, both fists clenched tightly to keep them from shaking. “Can’t you see he’s injured?” She had never been in a fist fight before, but she would not hesitate to pound this short little monster into the dirt if she had to.

The gremlin boy actually _hissed_ at her, lavender eyes narrowed dangerously, his hands up like gnarled little claws as he crouched possessively over Dib. Any fight he had intended to put up dissolved the moment he heard the sirens in the distance. A look of wide eyed panic washed over his features and he jumped up, scooping up his helmet and hucking it back in Gretchen’s face in the same movement. She shrieked and ducked, her hands flying up to protect her head. The helmet landed on the pavement somewhere behind her and by the time she had lowered her arms ZiM had pulled his bike upright and had hopped up to crouch with both feet on the seat.

       “ _Hideous HUMAN!_ I’ll have your eyelids for this!” He shook his fist before mashing the clutch and almost falling off as the bike kicked forward.

He was gone with the screech of tires and a cacophony of honks and shouting long before the ambulance arrived.

\---

Dib had declined Gretchen’s offer to stay with him at the hospital. It’s not like he was planning on doing much beside sleep until the staff decided he was well enough to send home. She only had the one summer to work in the illustrious Membrane Labs- Dib had the rest of his life. It had still taken quite a bit of convincing, and she had still shot him a guilty, worried look on her way out. He draped the arm that wasn’t trapped in a sling over his eyes, not even caring about the round metal frames digging into his eyebrows and the bridge of his nose. She really was a genuinely nice person.

And he really was genuinely the WORST because he couldn’t bring himself to even _pretend_ to be into her. Because she was sweet and shy and soft and painfully _boring._

He didn’t know how long he spent floating between the hard emergency room stretcher and muffled, incoherent, half dreams. The bustling ER was timeless in it’s own way, with it’s off-white, stained walls and drab, faded orange curtain partitions. With the traffic of visitors and patients and staff drifting by without a second glance and the steady beep of monitors hooked up to someone having a much worse day then him. The hospital thrummed in patterns and rhythms that existed outside the typical passage of hours and days.

       “Gib?” A chipper voice cut through the fog.

       “Dib.” He sighed flatly, not for the first time that day.

       “Your sister, Gus, is here to pick you up.” The nurse chirped without any hint of having heard him. She didn’t wait for him to reply before he could hear her softly squeaking shoes gliding away. He didn’t bother lifting his arm from his eyes at the sound of the curtain being drawn open and the sharp click of little heels across the floor. He should have expected his dad to be too busy to come get him. Admittedly he had kind of hoped to get a ride so he wouldn’t have to take the bus with a concussion, but, well, that’s just how it was. At least he could trust Gaz to roll him onto his side so he wouldn’t choke on his own tongue if he lost consciousness on the way home. Maybe. If she was in a good mood. It seemed the better his relationship became with his dad, the worse it became with his sister.

He was snapped from his thoughts when the entire stretcher rocked violently beneath him with an ear-splitting shriek of metal grinding against metal. He bolted upright to gape in horror at the green skinned boy with his gloved little claws wrapped around the bottom handle of the stretcher. He gave the wheels a bewildered look through his square framed glasses before giving another vicious tug. The brakes screeched again and Dib lurched with the jerky sway of the stretcher.

       “Wha-?! What are you doing?!” Dib cried. “What do you _want_ with me?” The (very) strange boy’s attention flicked up from the wheels to give Dib an incredulous look.

       “I already told you, I need to check something inside your fat head.” His tone heavily implied he felt it was _Dib_ being the unreasonable one about all of this. “You monkeys have managed to cobble together a primitive brain imaging device, yes? We might as well do something _useful_ while you’re sniveling like a smeet in your _inferior_ infirmary-”

       “You hit me with a motorcycle!” Dib pointed accusingly. “You’re _insane!_ I’m not going _anywhere_ with you!”

       “I BARELY TAPPED YOU!” The green skinned boy snapped, instantly defensive. “Insolent fool-boy! It’s not MY fault your _squirmy_ body is soft and FEEBLE!”

       “What is your _problem?_ Why are you so obsessed with my _head?_ That’s- That’s seriously messed up, you know!” Dib jumped off the stretcher and put the makeshift bed between the two of them. He gripped the handle with white knuckles and scowled to hide the rush of sour nausea that washed over him with the sudden movement. The other boy growled in response, both hands curling into claws and reaching up as though he wanted to tear his own hair out.

       “I. Already. TOLD. YOU. I need to see inside. Your. HEAD. _YOUR HEAD!_ Now stop with the lip smacky _stupidity_ and submit to your ‘See-Tee’ scan, _Dib.”_

Dib kicked down to release the break on the front wheel of the stretcher and shoved the bed with all his strength into the green skinned boy. He heard ZiM squeal but didn’t waste the precious second it would take to look back. He bolted through the curtains and directly into the arms of a shocked nurse. She dropped her charts with a startled shriek, papers fluttering around the two as Dib clambered to untangle himself and book it down the fluorescent lit hallway.

His stomach churned and his head throbbed in the sudden bright light and, _man,_ he really shouldn’t be doing this sort of thing with a concussion. He heard the curtain rip open- or maybe just rip altogether?- with a snarl behind him and cursed the lead he’d already lost. Something sailed past his head- a keyboard?- and he had to dance around the appliance as it shattered on the ground in front of him, letter keys skittering across the scuffed floor.

       “SERIOUSLY?” He whipped incredulously around just in time to dodge as a mouse went whizzing by. “You’ve already given me _one_ concussion today!” Dib’s eyes widened in horror as ZiM won the very brief tug-o-war with a doctor over a computer monitor and twisted his petite body to huck it at Dib with a shrill cry.

Dib threw himself against the wall and covered his head, wincing at the explosive bang of the monitor smashing across the cement floor.

       “ **SECURITY!** ” The lone voice of a nurse rang through the emergency department, then everything devolved into chaos.

Sirens blared over the speakers, dancing red and white lights illuminating the halls in violent bursts as hulking guards in crisp, white, tactical SWAT gear, disposable blue booties, and matching blue bouffants poured into the hallways.

Dib didn’t have the luxury of worrying about them quite yet as he twisted out of ZiM’s reach and kicked over a rolling chair in the absurdly violent boy’s way.

       “I need two Crazy Buckets brought to the ER STAT-” The lead guard barked into her walkie talkie at the same moment ZiM caught the rolling chair, lifted it by it’s headrest, and lunged at his bewildered target with every intention of using it to bludgeon the _infuriating_ boy into submission. “-We’re gonna need one of those Buckets reinforced.” She finished over the sound of Dib’s screaming.

Dib managed to dodge the first wide swing, stumbling on uncertain footing as ZiM reared back for another attempt. He wound up slipping and landing hard on his previously uninjured elbow as the chair swung wildly above him. He scooted back on his butt as ZiM stalked menacingly forward, lavender eyes narrowed into hateful slits and zipper teeth bared venomously.

       “It didn’t have to be this way, Dib. If you had just let me see inside your big, ugly head-” He raised the chair threateningly as he spoke, as though he intended to swing it down onto his defenseless opponent and get a _really_ good look at the contents of Dib’s head splattered all over the floor.

Dib didn’t let him finish. He swept his leg under ZiM’s feet, knocking the strange boy onto the ground as well. He didn’t have time to congratulate himself though, because at that moment four strong arms were grabbing him and roughly lifting him to his feet. The two massive security guards struggled to stuff the lanky boy into a dingy white bucket he was (unfortunately) rather familiar with from his chupacabra chasing days.

Dib allowed himself to go completely limp with a desperate cry.

       “My- MY SPINE! Oh the AGONY! I can’t feel my LEGS!”

He was immediately pulled away from the mouth of the bucket and lowered back down amidst a flurry of muttered concern. As soon as his feet connected with solid ground he started twisting and kicking wildly until the startled guards lost their grip. Then he was running full tilt again, his shoes squeaking from how hard he turned at the end of the hall. Somewhere behind him he could hear one of the guards shouting about how spinal injuries were no joking matter, and another one complaining about how hard Dib had kicked his shin.

He was met with a pair of double doors and a large neglected laundry bin around the corner. He ran and kicked the double doors open as hard as he could, a ferocious bang rattling both halls, then doubled back and flung himself into the overflowing laundry. He had almost a full second of glowing pride at how brilliant his quick thinking was until the horrible realization that he was burrowing into _soiled hospital linens_ hit him like the fist of an angry god and his skin attempted to leap off of his body. He was going to catch some sort of Mega Ultra Superbug from rolling around in a blood-borne pathogen grab bag. This was, without a doubt, the worst plan he’d ever thought up in the entirety of his life.

At least his terrible plan worked, as the security guards charged past the bin and through the double doors. He waited as long as he could hold his breath to see if anyone else was going to follow before bursting out of the laundry hamper with a dramatic gasp.

He wandered the labyrinthine halls with his head ducked down, careful to not draw any attention to himself, until he finally found the main entrance. He limped through the automatic doors just in time for a familiar black car to pull up with a screech. The passenger door popped open to reveal his father’s assistant casually sipping a Poop Cola behind the wheel.

       “Heeeey Dibster! Heard you had a teensy accident, buddy. Your dad asked me to swing by and drive you home.”

       “Hey Simmons.” His tone was flat partially because he was so exhausted he low key wanted to cry, but mostly because he really, deeply, from the bottom of his heart didn’t like Simmons. “Thanks.”

       “Your little friend, ah, what’s her name? Grizzle?”

       “Gretchen.”

       “Right, Gretched told us all about what happened.” He twirled his soda in the air without taking his eyes off the road. “You, um, something about you ran after a bicycle-”

       “I was ran _over_ by a _motor_ cycle-”

       “-Then you, like, bumped your head in the park-”

       “-I got a _concussion_ in a _parking lot-!”_

       “Hey, Dibbler, chill! No worries, little bud.” Simmons turned to face him, his smile as fake as ever. “So you got the afternoon off, it’s all good, that’s what vacation time is for, right?” Dib was about to object that a hospital visit hardly counted as a ‘vacation’ and also _Dib wasn't getting paid to begin with_ but Simmons talked over him with a cheesy wink. “Whoa, whoa, you don’t need to convince _me._ I was young once, I get it. One time when I was your age I ruptured my spleen when I threw myself in front of a _cute girlie_ on a bike too.”

Simmons waggled his eyebrows over his goggles with the most absurd grin Dib had ever seen and any retort he had withered off his tongue, out of his throat, from the entirely of his angsty teenage _soul,_ leaving only a deeply offended _hhhhhhaaaaaaaaaauuuuuuuuuugggghhhhhh_ sound to escape from his gaping mouth. He finally pulled himself together enough to respond.

       “He was _green!_ ” He snapped peevishly, his hand gesturing curtly in the air before crossing petulantly over his chest. Dib sank lower in his seat and stared resolutely out his window. The rest of the ride was spent in stony silence. He didn’t even feel bad about rubbing whatever mystery nastiness he’d rolled in all over Simmon’s stupid seat.

On the bright side, the white coats had probably dragged that earless weirdo off to the Crazy House for Boys by now. He wouldn’t have to put up with him or his obsession with his head ever again. _Freak._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **SPOILER** He definitely will. 
> 
>  
> 
> Fun fact: I should be working on my other stuff, but then I found out about the upcoming IZ movie and I had to word-vomit out a ridiculous AU about a ship I haven't thought about in a decade. Seriously, this whole thing was like some kind of violent fever dream. Feels good, man. 
> 
> A few quick notes:
> 
> 1) Shout out to A Promise to Keep by TrippNessa (https://archiveofourown.org/works/2252556/chapters/4944075) for awakening me to the higher knowledge that ZiM should be on a motorcycle, like, always. (Also this fic is amazing and I can't recommend it enough, go show it some love!)  
> 2) I'm not sure I portrayed it as clearly as I should have, but ZiM is rocking one of his (most iconic IMO) comic series outfits: SHMINVADER SHMIM. (Artist. Genius. Hated.) Shh, the disguise is plot relevant outside of me unironically loving this doofy look.  
> 3) Speaking of plot related, I wasn't sure if I should bring this up here or not, but ZiM referring to Dib by his name despite them never having met before, is also on-purpose. It's not a mistake, it's plooot huhuhu  
> 4) This biz is unbeta'd, so all mistakes here are my own.  
> 5) As always, thanks for reading and have a lovely day ~(˘▾˘~)


	2. Multitudes, Singularities, and Impossibilities

 

_ He pierced his light into the gloom _

_ Retraced her horror, and wept for two _

\- Woolf and Plath (Woulg Remix) // Foonyap

 

 

Dib ripped every stitch of clothing (besides his sling and boxers) off his body the  _ moment  _ he stepped through the front door and threw the lot of it into the incinerator bin. The rest of his evening was spent first in the decontamination shower down in his father’s basement lab, then eating some freezer burnt chicken tendies warmed up in the toaster (Professor Membrane had yet to buy a new microwave after the last one blew up) with a few swigs of milk straight from the carton to wash it down. Then finally,  _ blessedly, _ crawling into bed. 

The day had been kind of a waking nightmare and Dib honestly just wanted it to be over.

Which is why the first thing he did when he was jolted awake by what sounded like his name being whispered by hundreds of bone dry, rattling leaves scraping across cement was groan in frustration and cover his head with his pillow.

Unfortunately it seemed the strange multi voice was coming from both somewhere below his bedroom window and inside of his own head, so trying to muffle the sound with his pillow wasn’t nearly as effective as he’d hoped.

With the third rasping call came a strong tugging sensation deep in his chest and Dib flung his pillow off the bed with an annoyed growl. He put on his glasses and threw open his window to glare out into the mysterious fog that had descended upon the city at some point during the night. Well, wasn’t that just dandy. This would have been his  _ jam  _ when he was ten. He snatched one of his many white Membrane lab coats up off the floor, draped it over his shoulders, and crept down the stairs.

He was halfway through stuffing his bare foot into one of his red boots when the fourth whisper rippled through him, his name in a thousand shuddering voices and a delicate jangling, almost like a windchime. Closer now than before. He whirled around to survey the way the shadows twisted across the living room, scanning for anything out of place. He quickly shoved on his other boot and headed into the kitchen to slip a steak knife into his pocket. It was better than nothing.

It had been a couple years since he’d last had to use the slight ‘tilt and lift’ trick to pop open his front door without it squeaking, and he’d never attempted it with one arm trapped in a sling, so he was quietly relieved when the door swung silently open. There was a moment, when he stepped out and away from the safety, the normalcy, of his darkened home into the cool mist- into the  _ unknown-  _ that made his heart skip a beat. Not with fear, but with  _ excitement.  _ Perhaps the weird kid hunting for Bigfeets in the dog park hadn’t been buried  _ that  _ deep after all.

He didn’t have a chance to chase that thought any further, because the sound of wind chimes returned. Soft, distant, yet still powerful enough to almost drown out the strange ringing in his ears as he was drawn forward, his legs moving of their own accord, to the edge of the road in front of his house.

The fog swirled, seeming to billow slowly from the other side of the street, smothering the dim glow of the streetlights. Still, he could make out the outline of some sort of…  _ enormous _ horned animal standing tall and eerily still between the houses across the street. It’s antlers reminded him of a moose, but it’s face shape was all wrong. And it was big,  _ too  _ big, easily 8 feet tall at the shoulder. He couldn’t see it’s features, but the hair on the back of his neck stood on end with the sensation of it’s hidden eyes boring unerringly into him. Like it could see right through him.

He felt the odd sensation of the inside of his skull itching.

_        “It is true.”  _ The voices rustled around him,  _ inside  _ him, and he grit his teeth to keep them from chattering.  _ “Unexpected.” _

Disjointed whispers swelled somewhere just beyond the edge of his awareness, almost drowned out by the jangling of chimes.

_        <<-hy would it choose?- it cannot cho- drawn to the Dib- coincidence?- are no coinciden- not capable of thought or feel- dictated by chance alone- oolish to discredit a possible patt- haps the Defective knows some->> _

A shiver rippled beneath the creature’s skin and it took a strange, twitching step forward. It’s movements were strange, jerky, unnatural, like trying to watch animation that was missing a few frames. It teetered forward, closer to the human boy, it’s legs and shoulders shuddering, yet it’s head remained perfectly still, it’s gaze never wavering. The muffled whispering fell away as the strange ringing grew louder, the only sound not smothered by the strange mist.

       “ _ What  _ is true?” Dib clenched his fist and stubbornly met the creature’s gaze. “What’s being ‘drawn’ to me?” He refused to back down, his insatiable curiosity easily overriding his screaming sense of self preservation.

_        “You carry within your startlingly large head a terrible burden, earth child.”  _ It stepped onto the pavement, utterly silent despite it’s surreal size. Beneath the street light Dib could finally see it’s features clearly. What it lacked in both nose and mouth it more than made up for in eyes, all focused unblinkingly on him.  _ “You and your planet are in grave danger.”  _ It was halfway across the street when wispy, translucent hands began to part the long fur of the creatures thick neck, reaching out towards Dib from between it’s multiple eyes.  _ “We are sending you our Herald, young one. Trust her, and she will keep you safe.”  _ The creature towered above him, too many hands, too many eyes. It moved as though it had no bones, no blood, no muscle tissue, the surface of it’s skin bubbling beneath it’s fur. It reached forward in it’s awful multitudes, it’s trembling fingertips stretching towards Dib. Towards his head. The ringing grew louder and louder until it felt more like a pressure inside his skull then a sound.

The pressure was instantly dispelled when Dib reached up and slapped it’s weird, gross hands away from his face. It took an uncertain step back, a couple of it’s incorporeal hands sheepishly rubbing the first one to get smacked. Dib jutted his chin defiantly up at the creature.

       “My head’s not big!” He ran his hand through his messy hair in annoyance. “Ugh, that freak is even disturbing my sleep now.”

_        “Uh. You think this is some sort of dream, Dib Membrane? We assure you, our warning is very real. We have travelled far, through distant galaxies and alternate dimensions, to track-” _

       “Yeah, sure, I definitely believe my head has suddenly become the hottest commodity in the universe  _ coincidentally  _ after having a crazy person babbling about it while I was awake.” Dib rolled his eyes and turned on his heel to head back into his house. “I’d like to go back to just dreaming about running and drowning again, thanks.” He threw over his shoulder before shutting the door behind him.

_        “... Well, that could have gone better.”  _ The Meekrob collectively sighed from within their admittedly hastily researched ‘comforting earth animal’ form.  _ “On to plan B.”  _ And as quickly as that the creature and the fog blinked out of existence.

While the ancient race had long past evolved beyond the point of requiring physical sustenance, they still understood the key to a successful hunt was to utilize the appropriate bait. The human would be more compliant with the proper motivation.

Somewhere high above earth’s atmosphere a Meekrob battleship flicked off it’s stealth cloak for exactly 0.6 seconds.

\---

Galaxies away a computer system chirped a soft alarm, the technician’s antenna perking up in surprise.

       “Uh, my Tallest?” The technician hopped to his feet and saluted respectfully as a pair of sky blue eyes turned quizzically toward him. “We’ve picked up the signal of a Meekrob Riler within the Nuug3 quadrant of the Tango sector. It appears to be within the vicinity of planet…” The technician squinted down at his screen. “Urrth?”

       “A Riler?” Miyuki’s eyes narrowed. “Are you certain?”

       “Yes, my Tallest. The signal was brief, but unmistakable. I assume they dropped from a Jump before they thought to reactivate their cloak.”

Miyuki dismissed the technician with a curt nod before turning to gaze out the enormous bay window of the Massive.

       “Now why would the Meekrob move their warships to such an isolated sector?” She hummed softly to herself, one long, slender finger absently tapping her bottom lip in thought. “Operator? Is Urrth not the planet our smallest ‘Invader' was banished to?”

       “Yes, my Tallest!” The operator saluted smartly.

       “Hm. Interesting.” Her lips pulled back into an unkind smile. “Unjam the signal. It’s been too long since we’ve last touched base with our little  _ exile _ .”

\---

While Dib had never been hungover before in all 14 long years of his life, he had a sneaking suspicion that this is what it would probably feel like.

He groaned and rested his throbbing head on his knees. It had taken just shy of ten full minutes to sit up in his bed. On the one hand he wanted to call in sick, on the other he didn’t want to deal with the flack he’d undoubtably get for calling in sick. And, frankly, his dad’s lab probably had something tucked away in a drawer somewhere to clear up his headache anyway.

He dragged himself to the bathroom and almost cried when he discovered the Advil bottle stashed away on the cabinet's top shelf was empty. Then he discovered Gaz had already eaten the last of the cereal. His sister had also thrown his shoes outside onto the lawn, presumably because he left them in front of the door instead of on the mat.

He wasn’t having the best morning. On the bright side, his day could really only get better from here, right?

(And it couldn’t possibly be worse than yesterday, right?)

Or at least that’s what he  _ had  _ thought as he dragged himself into the Membrane Labs breakroom to see if there were any painkillers and/or instant hot chocolate packets to be pilfered.

Only to discover the green skinned  _ lunatic  _ from the day before was sipping a juice box sporting a weird logo at the table like he god-damn  _ belonged  _ there. Dib threw himself against the cabinets and pointed with a shrill cry.

       “WHA-? What are YOU doing here?!”

       “I am a humble X-change student bound to this HORRIBLE Membrane  _ torture facility _ for your unbearable summer as an intern-slave.” He stood up on his chair, juice box instantly forgotten, and planted his little fists on his wide hips, the sleeves of his white lab coat rolled up and the hem reaching below his knees. Of course they didn’t have a coat on hand that fit him properly, the tiny boy was barely as tall as Dib’s shoulder.

       “It’s funny, no one really  _ remembers  _ an international internship program, but the paperwork checks out so, you know.” The scientist sitting across the table from ZiM piped up with a shrug and a long sip of coffee.

       “I am pleased to meet you  _ for the first time, EVER,  _ Dib-thing.” ZiM made an expression that looked like the sort of smile someone who had never seen a smile before would attempt. Just… a lot of teeth.

Dib’s gaze flicked from ZiM, to the older scientist with his coffee, and back. He snatched the green boy by one of his surprisingly thin wrists and dragged him off the chair and down the hall to one of the empty conference rooms. He shoved the shorter boy in with a bit more force then was really necessary, but Dib was beyond the point of caring. The door slammed shut behind him with a note of finality as Dib whirled around and pressed his back against the wood. ZiM had recovered from his rough handling quickly enough, much to Dib’s irritation, and had already plunked himself down in a rolling chair to fix Dib with a smug look.

Dib pinched the bridge of his nose. None of this was helping his headache.

       “First of all, how did you escape the hospital?”

       “The guard drones threw ZiM into a padded ‘quiet room’ to ‘calm down’.” ZiM rolled his eyes. A detached part of Dib’s brain noted how the finger quotations kind of lost their effect when the speaker only had two fingers and a thumb to begin with. “So I cut my way out of the smelly bucket and escaped through the ceiling.” He shot Dib a skeptical look over his glasses. “That’s not why you brought me in here, is it?”

       “Why  _ me? _ ” Dib scowled. “Why are you being so weird about  _ my _ head?”

       “Something happened last night, didn’t it?” ZiM’s eyes narrowed knowingly.

_ Too many eyes, too many hands. Ringing and chimes. “You and your planet are in grave danger.” _

That had been a dream though- hadn’t it?

       “You didn’t answer my question.”

       “You didn’t answer  _ mine,  _ Dib-smell _.” _

       “How do you know my name?” ZiM blinked, clearly caught off guard by Dib’s question. “I never told you, and I doubt Gretchen would either.”

       “You were wearing a name tag, fool.” ZiM carefully studied the back of his glove as though it were his actual nails.

       “How did you know my sister’s name then? Or that I had a sister at all?”

ZiM froze for a beat before sniffing petulantly. An impressive feat without a nose, really.

       “Lucky guess.”

       “No, it  _ wasn- _ ”

       “YOU ARE AVOIDING ZIM’S QUESTION!” He pounded his fist on the armrest with a snarl. Dib was taken aback with the sudden change in tone. “You will answer NOW,  _ human.  _ What. Happened. Last. Night?” Little claws dug threateningly into the grey fabric as ZiM leaned forward in the chair, a strange intensity burning in his lavender eyes. “You didn’t let them  _ touch  _ your  _ head,  _ did you?”

Dib’s fingers flew up to lightly brush against his forehead.

       “No.” He breathed softly and watched the tension melt from ZiM’s shoulders. “I didn’t.” The green skinned boy flopped back into the chair and steepled his fingers, his attention sliding away from Dib altogether.

       “My equipment picked up a signal from a Meekrob Riler- I mean, a destroyer. I figured they’d come sniffing around sooner or later, but I thought we’d have more time before they’d start trying to get their  _ disgusting  _ tentacles all up in your-” He waved vaguely in Dib’s direction. “Big head.”

       “What’s a Meekrob?” Dib’s throat felt tight, his thoughts still caught on the word ‘destroyer’. ZiM hummed a noncommittal noise and twirled his chair. Dib swallowed thickly and tried again. “What are  _ you? _ ”

The look ZiM shot him over his plastic frames as he spun by was almost playful.

       “You know what I am, earth-boy.”

Green skin. No ears, nose, or eyebrows. Strange, pink tinted, interlocking teeth. Three fingers. There was a twitchy preteen who got shoved into lockers and wedgied in the boys change room on a daily basis screaming beneath his skin. The same twitchy preteen that had spent more than one weekend in the Crazy House for Boys. Dib clenched his fist.

       “No, I really don’t.”

The look ZiM gave him on this rotation was deeply unimpressed.

       “I thought you were supposed to be  _ smart _ .”

Dib frowned but decided to let that one go.

       “What’s in my head?”

ZiM’s little foot shot down and hooked onto the base of the office chair, stopping his spinning instantly. He twisted the chair to look Dib dead on, his fingers steepled in front of his thin lips and a deeply serious expression on his face. The silence stretched until Dib began to wonder if ZiM was going to answer at all.

       “A Singularity.” ZiM finally shrugged.

       “A… singularity?” Dib blinked hard, legitimately dumbstruck. “Like… the center of a black hole?”

       “Yup. Singularity 492, to be exact. The Meekrob want it for... something. I dunno, I never stuck around to ask. It’s probably not good though.”

       “That’s…” Dib grit his teeth and pinched the bridge of his nose so hard it hurt. “That’s  _ crazy. _ Like, certifiably crazy. And impossible. And really, REALLY stupid.” Maybe  _ he _ was the crazy stupid one for thinking this would play out literally any other way. Of course he wasn’t anything special, ZiM was just straight-up delusional _.  _ Dib should be over these silly fantasies by now. “If an actual  _ black hole  _ spontaneously opened up  _ directly on top of  _ earth the entire planet would be _ destroyed. _ ”

       “Then it’s a good thing your head is so vast and empty.” ZiM was quick to chirp with a self satisfied smile. “Seriously though, _look_ at this dump!” He threw his arms wide. “Nothing _escapes_ this miserable dirtball, and nothing that happens here affects ANYONE else. Time stands still with you all just sitting around in your primitive _huts_ and accomplishing _nothing_ while the rest of the galaxy spins by. If that’s not an event horizon I don’t know what is!”

       “Clearly, you don’t know what an event horizon is.” Dib interjected flatly. ZiM waved his criticism off.

       “You’re just a smeet.”

       “What’s a smeet?”

       “You are.” ZiM huffed with an eye roll and held up his arm to show off what looked like some sort of smart watch strapped to the outside of his left glove. “I don’t  _ care  _ if you believe it or not, Dib- _ smeet,  _ I’ve tracked 492  _ all the way here _ only to find it STUCK inside your big, stupid, head.” ZiM’s eyes narrowed, annoyance clear in his tone. “And I’m not leaving until I figure out a way to  _ remove _ it.”

       “My head’s not big!” Dib snapped. “Or stupid.” He added as almost an afterthought. ZiM squinted at him skeptically. Dib pounded his fist against the door once in frustration. “You’re out of you mind if you think I’m going to let some random  _ stalker  _ do  _ anything  _ to my head! Why do you even care so much about this ‘singularity 4-whatever’ anyway?”

       “492. It’s a weird one, even as far as these things go.” ZiM drawled nonchalantly, his eyes flicking from meeting Dib’s to gaze somewhere over his shoulder as he tapped a fingertip on the grey fabric armrest. “It has caught ZiM’s interest.”

Dib wrinkled his nose and debated calling the green skinned boy out. The one benefit to being surrounded by boot lickers was that he’d learned how to tell when someone was lying, or at the very least wasn’t being entirely truthful.

Then he remembered his head hurt, the space between his ribs and shoulder was a knot of pain, ZiM was a lunatic and a moron, and in the end Dib really, honestly, didn’t  _ care. _

       “Fine. Good for you or whatever. I’m going home.” Dib’s shoulders sagged as he turned and popped open the door he’d been leaning against. “And stay away from me. For real. Next time I’m calling the police.”

He didn’t bother shutting the door behind him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1) Have y’all ever heard of a broad-fronted moose? It was the largest member of the deer family to ever exist in… ever. It was rudely big. And bigly rude! Check it out if megafauna is your jam. Either way, the Meekrob should have probably dug a bit deeper into the credibility of their source before choosing a ‘first contact’ form.  
> 2) Tallest Miyuki, yesssss. Sure she only had like 2 lines from an unaired episode, but she is my wife and I love her deeply.  
> 3) In case you’re curious what WOULD happen if a black hole spontaneously opened in your head (or pocket), you should check out Kurzgesagt’s video on just that right here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8nHBGFKLHZQ  
> 4) And, as always, thanks for reading & have a lovely day ~(˘▾˘~)


	3. The Law of Gravity

_ Say you trust me? My back has wings _

_ Yeah, right _

\- Sirens // The Pack A.D.

 

 

Dib milked his concussion and broken clavicle for all they were worth. Which was about three days before Gaz wordlessly tipped the couch to roll him out of his comfortable nest onto the floor and barked at him to take a bath. Apparently his ‘gross boy funk’ was giving her a headache. Dib suspected it had more to do with her being sick of him hogging the big screen tv. 

While he had  ~~whined~~ objected initially, in the end not even he could deny he did feel a lot better after a long, hot shower.

Which meant he didn’t have much of an excuse to kick around at home anymore.

So on the fourth day after his hit and run incident Dib woke up at a reasonable hour, texted Gretchen and his dad, and got ready to return to work.

He actually had a really good morning. Gaz had been feeling civil enough to sit with him for breakfast, Dadbot 2.3 had successfully managed to make them scrambled eggs without shells, and it was gently raining outside. As far back as Dib could remember he’d always liked the rain. That warm feeling of nostalgia was the motivating factor behind him choosing to walk to the Lab.

The city seemed cleaner in the rain, the grass and trees greener, the crisp air smelled fresh and new. The fact the sidewalks were practically empty in the foul weather probably helped his mood.

Yes, Dib’s day had been going swimmingly, right up until he looked up from his phone to see an infuriatingly familiar green figure quivering beneath a ladybug umbrella near the cross walk. It hadn’t really clicked before that the little freak had been wearing the same thing two days in a row until Dib saw him dressed differently now. Instead of his usual leggings, magenta tunic, slouchy blue fringed scarf and stupid purple trilby he was wearing a lemon yellow sundress over what looked like a sleeveless navy blue unitard and little white cowboy boots. He had even ditched the thick square framed glasses, but had decided to keep his long black gloves and weird oval backpack.

Come to think of it, was ZiM a boy? Dib had kind of assumed before, but now he found himself second guessing as the green skinned terror turned to him with their  _ obviously fake  _ cotton candy pink pigtails and double winged eyeliner, recognition lighting up those violently orange irises that were  _ obviously contact lenses. _

ZiM smiled and waved, careful to keep their little gloved hand beneath their umbrella.

Dib scowled in return, spun on his heel, and darted directly into oncoming traffic to avoid them.

He didn’t even look up at the sound of tires screeching and horns blaring. As soon as he was safely on the other side of the street he whirled around to find his stalker weaving between cars in pursuit, their face frozen in a tight grimace as muddy water soaked the hem of their previously immaculate dress. Dib didn’t give them a chance to catch their breath once they reached the sidewalk, their little umbrella shaking above them in trembling hands and chest heaving as thin tendrils of what looked like steam wafted faintly from ZiM’s exposed skin. Dib held out his phone and took a threatening step forward.

       “I told you to stay away from me! That’s it! I’m calling the cops-!” Dib’s voice died in his throat when ZiM’s wide, frightened eyes flicked up to meet his and he realized it  _ wasn’t ZiM. _

She had the same green skin, lack of nose, ears, and fingers, but her eyes were the wrong shape, what he had assumed was eyeliner looked more like some sort of tattoo up close, her cheekbones higher and finer then ZiM’s, and she was a bit taller, standing up to Dib’s nose instead of his shoulder. He floundered in the gravity of his mistake and sincerely wished to get struck by lightning and be spared the inconvenience of his own existence.

       “Oh- oh god, I am so. So.  _ Sorry.  _ I, uh, I didn’t- are you alright?” He stopped mid-fuss and blinked as a different realization washed over him. “Wait, why did you follow me?” His eyes narrowed, paranoia creeping up his spine as he swallowed down the sudden urge to shield his head. That  _ did  _ seem to be the universe’s number one target as of late.

       “Are you the Membrane Dib?” The strange girl blurted, her wide, orange eyes desperately searching his. And, wow, that was not the voice he had imagined her having. Then again, he had never imagined any living thing was capable of sounding both shrill  _ and  _ raspy at the same time until he met ZiM (besides maybe parrots) and he assumed, based on the green skin and such, that the two were somehow related, so he really shouldn’t be  _ that  _ surprised.

       “That depends on who’s asking.” Dib crossed his arms and eyed the green skinned girl suspiciously. She brightened instantly, the tension released from her thin shoulders and a bright plastic pink-tinged smile lit up her delicate features.

       “Oh thank goodness! I’ve been looking everywhere for you!” A note of hesitance crept into her deep, nasal voice as she tilted her head slightly. “You were told to expect me, weren’t you…?”

Suddenly it all clicked into place and Dib felt the blood drain from his face. It had been- it  _ had  _ to have just been a dream, right? It would be, like,  _ legitimately insane  _ to think that monstrous  _ thing  _ or anything it had told him was real, wouldn’t it? Yet here was the second person to comment on it, outside of Dib himself.

(And they both had  _ green skin _ and wore incredibly  _ fake wigs and contacts  _ and had sharp little  _ claws  _ instead of regular fingers, and called him things like  _ ‘earth-boy’ _ , and had strange, delicate, almost  _ alien  _ features-)

       “You’re the Herald.” His voice was barely a whisper, half dreading and half hoping that she wouldn’t have any idea what he was talking about. His stomach clenched when she nodded, relief softening her smile into something more genuine.

       “I was a bit worried since my leaders warned me that you hadn’t been, er, overly receptive of their initial contact, but you’re right!” She held her clenched fist over her chest and bowed her head. “I am the official Herald for the Meekrob. My name is Tenn, and I have been sent here to protect you. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Membrane Dib.” She finished with a warm smile.

Dib’s head spun as he waged war within himself, bitter cynicism crashing against irrational  _ excitement _ . The  _ ohmygodit’srealthisishappening  _ and the brutal reality that his childhood hopes and fantasies were impossible, fake, and dumb, because everyone he had ever known had  _ told  _ him his hopes and fantasies were impossible, fake, and dumb.

A new thought rang clear through the mess of his warring emotions. What if there was something  _ medically  _ wrong with him? What if ZiM had given him actual brain damage when he ran him over? Maybe he  _ should  _ get an MRI or CT scan.

Well, on the bright side, if that were the case at least he’d have a solid excuse to hog the tv. Not even Gaz would terrorize him if he was legit dying. Probably.

He blinked those thoughts away- he could check into that once he got off work. For now Tenn was wilting in the awkward silence that followed her introduction. Dib self consciously coughed into his fist.

       “Um. Yeah. It’s… good? To meet you too?”

       “Yes. It really is.” Tenn stated matter-of-factly. “Well, I’m sure you have lots of questions my leaders will be happy to answer if you’ll just come right this way-” She continued in a forced casual tone as she briskly walked past him and snagged the hem of his lab coat in her surprisingly strong grip to drag him back in the  _ opposite  _ direction of Membrane Labs.

       “Wait, what? NO.” Dib slapped his coat free from her little claws and turned on her, exasperated. Why did everyone assume he was some dumb kid with all the spare time in the world to get kidnapped? “I have to go to work!”

       “This is more important than your  _ playtime,  _ Membrane Dib!” Tenn whirled back on him and met his forceful tone equally with her own, the hand not holding her umbrella curling into a fist at her side. “You have  _ no idea  _ what’s at stake-!”

      “Yeah,  _ obviously _ I have no idea what’s going on! You  _ psychos  _ keep jumping right to  _ abduction and assault  _ instead of just telling me!” Tenn took a moment to visibly calm herself with a deep breath before meeting his accusing gaze once more.

       “We are  _ trying _ to answer your questions, human,  _ you  _ are the one who is resisting here.” She planted her fist firmly on her hip, her voice back to a more reasonable volume but annoyance still clear in her tone.

       “Yeah, well you can answer them  _ here,  _ in public, where I know no one is going to try and steal my organs or whatever.” Dib crossed his arms stubbornly and stomped a boot forcefully down on the sidewalk. Perhaps that had been a bit childish, but it seemed to convey his point as Tenn rolled her eyes.

       “No one is after your filthy organs, Membrane Dib.”

       “You  _ are  _ after my head though, aren’t you?” Dib squinted one eye down at the green skinned girl as surprise wiped all trace of annoyance from her face. “Now tell me,  _ what  _ are the Meekrob, and what do they want with this… thing. In my head. Allegedly.”

Tenn smoothed a gloved hand down the front of her cheerful yellow sundress and gazed up at him from beneath her pink bangs, her unnatural orange eyes intensely searching his. When it seemed she wasn’t going to find whatever she had been looking for she sighed loudly and ran her thin fingers through her bangs.

       “My apologies, Membrane Dib, it seems our foots have started out wrong. Let’s just start over.” Her expression softened. “The Meekrob are my leaders. They are a peaceful and benevolent race that saved me from a… bad situation. Like they are trying to save you. I understand your doubts, I really do, I once stood where you are now. But please, trust me when I say they only wish to help you.”

Dib wrinkled his nose. He found the sort of people who led with things like ‘trust me’ were usually the  _ last  _ people you wanted to trust with anything. His conversation with ZiM popped suddenly to mind.

       “If the Meekrob are so peaceful then why did we pick up the signal from a Riler a couple days ago?” He couldn’t fight a dark, humorless grin as Tenn blanched. “Usually people don’t roll out destroyers to ‘just help’.”

Tenn’s hand flew to her mouth in shock as she took a hesitant step back.

       “How-? How did you pick up the signal? You don’t have the technology-”

       “Membrane Labs is  _ the  _ forefront of technology on earth,  _ Tenn _ . You shouldn’t be so surprised.”

       “ _ Precisely. _ ” Her shrewd eyes burned as she stalked menacingly forward, her initial shock shifting to- anger? Dib’s smug look melted into one of alarm. “Your pathetic  _ best and brightest  _ have  _ failed _ to receive several official transmissions from  _ directly above  _ their primitive base.”

Dib managed to dodge her first swipe and made a quick mental note that both Tenn and ZiM, whatever they were ( _don’t say alien_ ), had the same terrifyingly unhinged tendency to jump directly to violence when things didn’t go their way. Tenn lunged forward, feinting to the right only to shift her weight at the last moment and sink her claws deep into Dib’s injured shoulder, searing hot pain wiping all thought from his mind as he cried out.

       “Now, _ape-meat,_ ” She snarled and wrenched his shoulder. “WHO have you been in contact with?”

He lashed out to try and push her away but only succeeded in knocking the umbrella out of her hand. There was a split second where Dib watched her eyes widen with horror before she  _ howled _ and steam started pouring from her exposed skin. He shoved her again, her claws unhooking from his shoulder with a wet sound, and she landed hard on the rain drenched cement.

Dib turned and ran, leaving the Herald to scream and writhe on the ground behind him.

\---

Sure enough, his shoulder was a  _ mess  _ by the time he dragged himself into the lab. Violent red had soaked down his white coat and pooled in his sling. Admittedly the rain had made it look a lot worse than the injury actually was, but still. His t-shirt was  _ ruined _ and he wasn’t happy about it. Not to mention he had three new angry little puncture holes in his shoulder _. _ That was bad too he guessed. This whole head business was getting completely out of hand.

Speaking of which, he discovered that the actual ZiM was  _ still _ playing up his stupid cover at his father’s lab, much to Dib’s annoyance. He’d glanced up from where the secretary had been attempting to clean him up with cotton balls to catch the green skinned boy peeking around the door frame to silently watch. Sure enough, he was dressed the same as when Dib had last seen him. Freak.

Instead of looking shocked, curious, concerned, or sympathetic like literally everyone else Dib had encountered in his gruesome state, he looked  _ furious.  _ Like Dib being attacked was somehow inconvenient for ZiM. Maybe he was just jealous because someone else had assaulted Dib for once.  _ Freak. _

Dib scowled right back and made of point of sticking his nose in the air and stubbornly refusing to check back and see if the earless weirdo was still lurking by the door.

Clearly he had left on his own at some point, because his father made no mention of him when he popped in to check on Dib while he was waiting for a new lab coat to be tubed up from the underground laundry depot.

Dib loved his dad, he really did, and the past two years had been the closest to Professor Membrane he’d ever been, but there was still a small, silly part of him that was intimidated by the brilliant scientist. His father truly was incredible, it was no exaggeration to say the world would plunge into chaos without him. Dib would know- he had been the one to do the plunging on more than one occasion.

Those were some terrifyingly enormous shoes he was expected to fill one day. Whether he wanted to or not.

Dib expected to be lectured on missing so much work. What he got instead was so, so much worse- his father was _worried_ about him.

He’d skipped quite a few days at the lab, only to show up in  _ this  _ state, and so soon after his last ‘accident’. His dad laid a warm, solid hand on his uninjured shoulder and tried his level best to pry a heart-to-heart out of his mortified son. He implored Dib to tell him if it was bullying, if he was in some sort of trouble with the local gang scene, if he was harming himself, or if this was some other sort of cry for help that Membrane had been too wrapped up in his work to notice before. He promised to help in whatever way Dib needed him, assured him that both he and Gaz loved him, and that he was proud of him.

By the time his father was saying how he’d always have his back Dib was  _ really  _ shutting down, because he knew that it just wasn’t  _ true.  _ If he looked his dad in the eye and told him he’d been attacked by what he suspected were honest-to-goodness  _ aliens  _ because he might have some sort of mysterious space phenomenon trapped in his  _ head _ his father would just give him THAT look. The one Dib hadn’t been on the receiving end of for just over two years since he’d sworn off paranormal research. And he would have to find a way to deal with it on his own. Just like before.

So he carefully avoided meeting his father’s gaze and lamely muttered something about losing a fight with a stray cat. Professor Membrane had been clearly unconvinced, but hadn’t pushed Dib to stay and talk it out when the secretary arrived with a crisp new lab coat. Then, for the second time that day, Dib had ducked his head down and bolted from his problems.

ZiM had thus far been weirdly obedient in following Dib’s demand to leave him alone. It was almost a pity- Dib was definitely in the mood to find something that annoyed him and kick it to  _ death. _

The rest of his work day dragged by without incident. His father’s employees gave him a wide breadth for once, clearly set on edge by his obvious sling and the murmured rumors about what was hidden beneath the itchy gauze and tape under his shirt. On the one hand he usually  _ hated _ being the subject of office gossip, on the other it was kind of nice to be left alone. Bless STEM majors for being so stereotypically socially awkward.

Except for Gretchen, of course, who had gone out of her way to find him during her lunch break to bring him a sprinkle donut and a watery hot chocolate. That was okay though, he didn’t mind her company when she was like this. In slouchy overalls with grease under her blunt fingernails, her hair pulled back into haphazard pigtails for the sole purpose of getting it out of the way, with little to no care for how it looked. A _ friend _ . Thankfully she was more concerned with making sure he was alright then trying to advance their relationship into territory Dib wasn’t comfortable with.

Ugh. That was still something they would have to deal with eventually. He hoped it wouldn’t ruin the budding friendship they’d managed to strike up while working together over the summer. It would be kind of… nice to actually have a friend in Hi Skool.

Shortly after lunch Professor Membrane sent him a message to let him leave early, and to tell Gaz he would be home for dinner. He would be picking up Chinese from Dib’s favourite little hole-in-the-wall restaurant.

Dib shoved his thick, rubber work glove in his pocket and gave his dad the victory of a small, tired smile. He couldn’t really be mad at him, he knew his father was trying his best to do what was right for both his family and the rest of the world. He was just, well, he  _ was  _ a STEM major. Feelings weren’t exactly his forte.

Dib still intended to swing by the hospital before heading home to see if he could set up an appointment, or at least  get a referral, for an MRI scan or something. Just to be on the safe side.

Or at least that  _ had  _ been his plan. Then he was abducted by some sort of giant goat demon. Because that’s just what his life was like these days.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry folks, this one was a bit shorter & not exactly action heavy, but the following scene wound up being long enough to stand as a chapter all on it's own. An extra long one at that! So keep an eye out for that :) Note wise I don't really have a lot more to add? This is definitely more of a slow chapter, I'm just trying to get all of our main characters introduced... Yay Tenn! Our Irken ladies need more love~ Otherwise I figured it would be good to have a quick check-in with Dib's normal life before things got crazy again. 
> 
> Many thanks to the lovely folks who have left kudos & comments, y'all are the real stars here! 
> 
> As always, thanks for reading and have a lovely day ~(˘▾˘~)


	4. Adolescent Feelings And Other Inconvenient Paranormal Activity

_But the storm is a-coming 'cross the hills tonight_

_Like a vein full of rain to the hearts that should fight_

\- A Bar in Amsterdam // Katzenjammer

 

  


Dib vowed he was never going to zone out in a public area ever again. It  _really_ hadn’t worked out in his favour over the past week.

The ear piercing screech of metal tearing managed to drown out the screaming of the other passengers around him, his eyes instinctively squeezing shut and teeth gritting in the wake of the horrible sound. The world lurched sickly around him, his eyes popped open again just in time to watch the enormous goat-ish  _thing_ rip the city bus in half as easily as breaking open a Twinkie.

It tilted both halves to peer into each side, the flat screen of it’s face almost comically small compared to its hulking shoulders and massive three-fingered hands. Dib wrapped his arm around the seat in front of him as the entire half of the bus tipped back. He stared agape up at the strangely twitching horns(?) erupting from the top of the creature’s head and curling back to almost touch it’s shoulders as it leaned it’s flat face into the front half of the bus. His world went dark, it’s enormous bulk blocked the sun as it twisted it’s huge body to loom into the back half where Dib had been sitting. The sudden transition from darkness to aggressively blue light was jarring, to say the least. Dib flinched back and squinted against the sudden glaring light as it shoved it’s square, flat, glowing ‘face’ through the cavernous hole, the stark white **[NO SIGNAL]**  bright and unrelenting in the middle of the screen.

It was staring into  _his_ side an awful lot longer than it had for the front half, Dib couldn’t help but note with a sinking feeling.

He tried giving the goat monster his best disarming smile.

It promptly dropped the front of the bus and stuffed it’s huge hand into the back, it’s thick fingers clumsily feeling over the stained seats like a toddler trying to fish the last french fry from the bottom of a take out bag.

Dib threw himself out of his seat into the aisle, making sure to land on his back. He made note of where the ventilation shaft was located on the ceiling directly over the back seat. The plan was to slide down the aisle away from the monster’s grasp, force the hatch all the way open, and escape along with everyone else trapped with him.

Or that was the plan. Except he didn’t slide down the aisle.

Dib sat upright, baffled, his lab coat making the distinct sound of velcro ripping as it pulled reluctantly away from the filthy floor. He twisted his arm to find the back of his sleeve was no longer white, but city transit grey.

       “Ew.”

Then he was squeezed between two enormous sausage fingers and plucked like a choice Cheeto from the back of the bus.

The monster swung him up high, his feet left to dangle above its staticy blue screen like it intended to somehow devour him, the **[NO SIGNAL]**  flickering as Dib screamed in terror.

A message popped onto the screen, the briefest flash of **[UNEXPECTED ERROR. PLEASE INVESTIGATE.] [OK]** , then  **[NO SIGNAL]**  popped up again.

Dib’s petrified screams died off after a few long, awkward moments of hanging suspended high in the air with nothing happening. He blinked down at the flickering screen, then out at all the people below that were starting to peek out from where they had ducked for cover. Dib felt the heat rise in his cheeks and struggled halfheartedly in the monster’s grip, not actually trying  _that_ hard since he’d probably just wind up breaking something else if he wormed his way free and fell from this height.

Finally the screen flicked from **[NO SIGNAL]**  to  **[AUDIO ONLY]**.

       “Oh-  _oh!_ Waitwait _wait_ , don’t, uh, don’t unplug- I think you got it? Maybe? One sec.” It sounded like someone was talking while facing away from a microphone. “Hallooo?” The same voice, crystal clear this time.

       “ _WHO ARE YOU?_ ” Dib snapped instantly.

       “Oh hey, yay, it’s working! Sounds like it already got one too. You wanna, you know?” The same voice, facing away from the microphone again. There was a few seconds of scuffling.

       “You, Earthian, if you wish to see your mammal family again you will tell us all you know about…” This speaker paused for dramatic effect. The new voice was deeper, more authoritative, and distinctly more… British? “The  _DIB._ ”

       “What do you want with me?” Dib barked back.

       “We want the  _DIB!_ ”

       “ _What do you want with me?!_ ”

       “WE WANT- honestly, are you even listening?” Dib had renewed his squirming efforts. Another broken bone was starting to look like the more appealing option compared to whatever this thing had in store for him. “Wait- oh.  _Oh!_ Don’t tell me  _you'_ _re_  the DIB? Seriously?”

       “Let go of me!”

       “I mean, uh,  _YOU_ are the  _DIB_ , and you’re coming with us! Resistance is futile,  _Earthian._ ”

Dib’s mouth dropped open in silent horror, his eyes widening at the strange sucking sensation, like quicksand, as his torso was  _absorbed_ into the creature’s massive hand and swallowed down into the thick flesh(?) of it’s wrist. The monster dropped the back half of the bus and straightened to it’s impressive full height.

The people below began to panic, scattering in all directions as a handful of police cars  _finally_ came screeching to a halt just beyond the goo demon’s reach. The sound of bullets ripped through the air, though they might as well have been firing marshmallows for all the monstrous goat creature seemed to care. It crouched down on it’s disproportionately thin, long ankles and  _l_ _aunched_ itself high above and beyond the line of police cars to land far behind their defensive semi-circle. It leapt again as soon as it’s narrow feet touched the ground, this time vaulting up to grab the edge of a nearby overpass with the hand that wasn’t fused with a hysterically screaming human boy. Rubber screeched against pavement and horns blared as the goat demon hoisted itself up onto the road and twisted it’s hulking body to check both ways. Dib could faintly hear the muffled British voice and the first voice bickering over directions beneath the swarm of noise and chaos around him on the highway.

Suddenly the air around him smelled like burning plastic and he was falling, the entire hand he was stuck in dropping like dead weight and the lamps of a couple street lights, cut cleanly from their posts, falling as well in his peripheral vision. He hit the ground hard enough to knock the air from his lungs, his vision going black around the edges, but thankfully the severed hand took the brunt of the impact. The flesh prison he’d been trapped in sagged around him while he struggled to breath, only tightening when he tried kicking his way free. Apparently he was dealing with some sort of… semi-sentient non newtonian fluid? He didn’t have to wonder how to wiggle free for long, the goo around him suddenly quivering and instantly slurping back into the monster’s body as the British voice roared somewhere above him.

       “IRKEN  _SCUM!_ ”

Dib flipped over to pop up onto his knees in time to watch the goo monster’s remaining arm convulse, ripple, and  _stretch_ into something that was no longer a hand, but a long, thick cord lashing out at it’s apparent target-

An aggressively pink motorcycle.

Dib’s jaw hung open, the world around him taking on a surreal, dream like quality as he watched ZiM readjust what looked like a bazooka, only more boxy and blaring hot pink (of course), on his shoulder, one eye squinted shut and the tip of a worm-like tongue peeking out over his upper lip. He ducked where he was standing, one little black boot planted firmly on the motorcycle seat to take the majority of his weight, the other pressed up against the handlebars to steer into a hard drift, his weight shifting dramatically to remain upright as his bike dipped down at such an extreme angle it seemed impossible for it to not tip all the way onto its side. The drastic evasive maneuver worked though, the thick cord whipping narrowly over the green skinned boy’s head. ZiM aimed up at the distorted arm and fired, a searing bright light flickering momentarily into existence and then the severed whip-like tendril splattered across the pavement and whatever vehicles were unfortunate enough to be in the way.

The motorcycle wobbled dangerously beneath his feet as ZiM righted himself and twisted his scrawny little body at an awkward angle with a malicious grin to aim his honest-to-god  _laser gun_ at the hulking slime monster.

It occured to Dib, suddenly, as he watched the bitch-please-pink bike turn to roar directly towards him, that perhaps he had died on the convenience store parking lot back when ZiM had mowed him down the first time and now he was in hell for having dabbled in the Dark Arts when he was nine.

Blindingly bright light seared Dib’s retinas and the massive creature  _shrieked,_ it’s glowing screen dancing with static as it and a huge shoulder slid bonelessly from it’s torso, it’s massive body already starting to lose it’s shape. Dib desperately tried to blink away the black spots dancing in his vision, his gaze flicking away from the mayhem that was unfolding on the highway to stare in shocked horror at the gaping chunk ZiM’s laser had managed to cut out of an office building  _behind_ the monster.

ZiM snagged him by the back of his collar and plopped him, side saddle, behind his foot on the motorcycle seat. Dib found himself with an armful of warm, surprisingly heavy laser gun before he had a chance to object. ZiM crouched down to perch with both feet on the seat and grabbed the shocked teenage boy under his chin to force him to meet ZiM’s hard gaze.

       “That is very. Very.  _Expensive._ If you damage it, Dib-smeet, I will remove your  _spine._ ” His eyes narrowed as he leaned in close enough for Dib to smell that his breath was weirdly sweet. “Through your big  _mouth._ Understood?” Dib managed to nod and ZiM turned away with a huff. The laser was connected to ZiM’s backpack by a thick silver cable, the top panel of his bag gaping open to reveal… wow, a  _lot_ more machinery then Dib had anticipated. Then again, he didn’t really know  _what_ to expect when it came to the small green  ~~alien~~  boy.

Then ZiM finally,  _blessedly,_ took over steering with his actual  _hands._ The black haired boy almost had enough time to feel relieved before ZiM sent them careening over the edge of the overpass.

A detached part of Dib’s brain noted that if he somehow lived through today he probably wouldn't have a voice tomorrow, what with all the uncontrollable screaming for his life and all.

He curled into a ball, the arm not trapped in a sling hugging the laser tightly to his chest in a desperate effort to anchor himself to  _something_ during the heart stopping, weightless, moment when his butt lifted off the leather seat. Sharp little claws grabbed his bicep and yanked him back down. While he didn’t think ZiM had managed to break the skin like Tenn he was also deeply offended that  _everything awful kept happening to the same arm._

His eyes widened in horror and disbelief as the goat monster’s enormous form twisted back into it’s proper shape at the edge of the overpass, the bright, glowing screen flicking from  **[NO SIGNAL]**  to **[AUDIO ONLY]**  as it’s arms rippled and shifted form into long, whip like tendrils.

       “Release the DIB this instant, Invader menace!”

The air was knocked from his lungs for the second time that day and he very nearly lost his grip on the gun as the bike slammed onto the top of a tour bus with bone rattling force before bouncing off the roof and hitting the hard pavement. On the wrong side of the road.

It was while horns blared as cars swerved ahead of them, and massive grey whips of some sort of alien slime creature ripped up the asphalt behind them, that Dib’s mind cleared in a moment of perfect clarity.

This was it. This was how he was going to die.

He hadn’t realized he’d said as much out loud until ZiM shot him an annoyed look over his shoulder.

       “If ONLY we had some sort of weapon that was LITERALLY DESIGNED to be  _VERY EFFECTIVE_ against VLSGs,  _Dib,_ maybe we could really turn this around, huh,  _DIB._ ”

He swerved hard to avoid the entire car-sized fist hurled in their path, the pasty pale ooze bursting into multitudes of much smaller fists attempting to pummel them as they twisted out of their path. Dib almost fell off again, a gloved hand snatching him back up onto his seat once more without ZiM so much as looking back. Dib uncurled his arm to blink down at the laser he’d been clutching to his chest.

       “ZiM! I- I can’t use this!”

If ZiM’s little claws hadn’t been drawing blood before they definitely were now as he fired a downright  _murderous_ look over his shoulder.

       “You are just! The most  _infuriating-_ Ugh!  _DIB!_ I don’t  _CAAARE_ about your stupid  _property damage-_ ”

       “That’s not what I meant!” Dib shouted back in a vain effort to be heard, hot anger taking the edge off the fear, and suddenly yelling at ZiM felt more important than not winding up giblet-a-fied by a sludge monster or semi truck. “Though that IS still important and you SHOULD care, _jerk!_ But I MEANT I can’t  _use_  both my arms!”

ZiM whipped back to argue, mouth popped open with some sort of (probably rude) retort before his lavender eyes flicked to Dib’s sling. His mouth clicked shut into a zipper frown, all trace of annoyance wiped clean as he turned away focus on steering again.

       “Right.”

And ZiM jumped the curb up onto the sidewalk and through the glass doors leading into a boutique shop.

On the bright side, it was kind of nice to not be the only one screaming anymore.

Store patrons would later describe the incident as being triggered by a really pink dirt bike driven by some sort of little, green, nuclear mole and a big headed boy with a truly impressive lung capacity screeching something like ‘ _ZZZZZZZZIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII-!!!_ ’. Though perhaps he wasn’t ‘saying’ anything at all, he very well could have been just leaking air. When pressed, none of the witnesses were able to confirm or deny whether or not the big headed boy was also some variety of radioactive rodent. Anyway, after that a literal avalanche of sludge obliterated the east entrance.

       “- _IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIMMMMMMMMMM!!!”_ Dib couldn’t bring himself to open his eyes, the deafening sounds of screaming and carnage were already enough to fill up a solid session (or eight) with the psychologist he was sure he was going to need once all this was over. At least ZiM seemed to be having a grand old time, if the cartoonishly evil cackling was anything to go by. Good for him. He could foot the bill for Dib’s future therapy.

They lurched sickly to the left, then to the right, over and over until Dib got the sinking feeling that these weren’t so much ‘evasive maneuvers’ as it was just how ZiM drove. Or the little green menace was trying to make him sick. That was also a sadly plausible explanation. He would have fallen off long ago if not for the strong little hand clamped tightly around his bicep. A detached, probably oxygen starved, part of his brain decided this would be a good time to awkwardly acknowledge this was probably the longest anyone has held on to Dib in his… ever. Which was something else to bring up during his future therapy sessions. He was going to make someone very rich one day.

Then the ooze monster managed to slap ZiM’s bike out from under them both and all thought was wiped from his mind. Time seemed to slow as the world around him faded beyond the surreal sensation of flying and the sickening knowledge that he was actually falling and, considering their speed, he was probably going to wind up very, _very_ hurt once he hit the ground.

Instead he was snatched out of the air and engulfed in that same, strange, sucking sensation as he was swallowed into the monstrous goat creature’s arm. Arm? Shoulder? Dib blinked up at the monster with a mixture of horror and fascination as it’s shape twisted in onto itself. The ceiling was too low for it to return to it’s apparently preferred form and it seemed to be caught in a moment of indecision as to what to do with it’s body.

       “DIB!” The raven haired boy’s attention whipped down to meet ZiM’s wide lavender eyes, the green skinned boy hanging by the thick silver cord that connected his backpack to his laser like a squirming cell phone charm.

Oh. Right.

Dib struggled through the ooze to feel along the boxy barrel of the laser still clutched tightly to his chest. It’s not like he actually needed to  _aim_  at this point. As soon as he found something that felt kind of like a trigger he leaned his head as far back as he could, clenched his eyes shut, and squeezed.

The light was almost blinding even through his eyelids. The creature howled a tinny, mechanical shriek as the smell of burning plastic and ozone exploded in his senses. Dib grit his teeth and mashed the trigger again. This time the slime holding him in place finally gave way. So did a good portion of the ceiling, sending dust, debris, and wires raining down around Dib as he dropped directly on top of ZiM.

He almost had enough time to comprehend what happened before ZiM viciously shoved him off and kicked at him for good measure. The green boy popped to his feet and snatched his laser back out of Dib’s hands, his weird, noseless face pinched in anger. He inhaled sharply and dropped his mouth open to say something (probably rude), but was promptly backhanded three aisles over before he had a chance.

Dib scrambled to get away from the goat demon as it turned it’s horrible blue face fully to him.

       “That is _enough!_ You are coming with us, DIB-creature!” The British voice was back, and it did not sound amused.

Dib’s mind raced. ZiM’s laser was the only thing that seemed to do any sort of damage to the monster. Too bad his spine had probably exploded with the force of that slap, so Dib couldn’t really expect him to sweep in to the rescue again.

His attention was caught by one of the wires that had fallen through the ceiling, or more specifically the small white sparks that danced on it’s severed end, as a massive hand lashed out. Dib lunged forward, his hand darting into his lab coat pocket to clumsily grab the heavy rubber glove he’d stuffed in there at work. He didn’t bother even trying to put it on properly, he knew he didn’t have time as his legs were swallowed by the strange slime creature. He used his glove like one would use a dish cloth to remove a hot pan and grabbed the live wire and jammed it into the monster’s flesh with a desperate cry.

Dib had no way of knowing it, but this was probably the best course of action he could have taken, given how Vortian liquid substance golems were extremely susceptible to electricity.

It was also just an _awful_ plan, given how his tender human body was  _also_ extremely susceptible to electricity, and he was literally  _engulfed_ in the VLSG.

So the next thing Dib knew as he blinked his way back into consciousness was that it felt an awful lot like he’d been donkey-kicked in the chest by God himself.

ZiM’s blurry features slowly came into focus above him, and he only realized the green boy had been talking to him after he’d finished.

ZiM stared down at him expectantly from where he knelt at his side, clearly waiting for a response. Dib swallowed his organs back into place and spoke.

       “Am I dead?” He managed to croak.

       “You’re  _fine._ ” ZiM huffed. He paused, his lavender eyes flicking away as he seemed to mull something over for a moment before meeting Dib’s gaze again. “Well, your heart stopped.” He shrugged. “But you’re fine now.”

       “What _was_ that thing?” Dib groaned as he forced himself to sit up.

       “We used to call them JuiceBrutes back in training!” ZiM chirped as he hopped up to his feet. Dib watched him march over to where his motorcycle was lying on its side. “They’re not too hard to get a hold of if you’ve got the monies. I bet the Meekrob sent it to get you.” He threw over his shoulder as he pulled the bike upright. “They’re not, like, physically all _there_ , ya know? Cuz they’re creepy. So they need to use stuff like that.”

Dib just stared while ZiM prattled on.

       “You’re an alien.” His tone was mild, matter-of-fact, like he was commenting on the weather.

       “I don’t know what you’re talking about, earth-boy.” ZiM sounded as smug as the cat who’d gotten the cream. He popped open the entire side of his motorcycle to reveal a mess of wiring and machinery that was definitely _not_  a normal engine and slotted his laser gun into what looked like some sort of holster/charging station.

Dib didn’t know if he wanted to shout for joy, scream in frustration, or just… cry.

How many hours had he sunk into researching reports of alien abductions and sightings? How many conspiracy theories had he poured over? How many nights had he spent sprawled on his roof dreaming and wishing, hanging all his naive hopes on the stars? And now, out of the blue, here it was- everything he had so desperately wanted to be true was right in front of him. And on him. All around him. It was everywhere, really, the JuiceBrute had completely lost its form and coated the floor like a layer of snot.

He finally had his proof after he’d given up.

Dib was torn between the almost overwhelming impulse to know _everything_  about ZiM (what he was, where he came from, if he had three toes or if his feet looked crazy different from his hands) and the deep, wounded urge to lash out, to grab him by his thin shoulders and just  _shake_  him (ask him where he had been six years ago, four years ago, hell,  _two_  years ago, when Dib was a twitchy, weird, loser who didn’t belong and just needed something,  _anything,_ to BELIEVE in because he felt like he was losing his mind. When Dib still felt like  _Dib._ When he still felt anything at all).

In the end he was too tired to feel anything but kind of numb. He could deal with the swarm of intense, conflicting emotions buzzing somewhere beyond the veil of exhaustion after he’d slept. Probably at some ungodly hour of the morning, knowing him.

       “Where were you going, anyway?” ZiM slid the pink cover back into place with a sharp click. “I thought you’d be smart enough to  _lay low,_ considering your...” He held up his hands to air quote. “Delicate condition.”

Dib made a face. When he said it like that it sounded like ZiM was implying he was pregnant.

       “I was heading back to the hospital to see about setting up a referral for an MRI scan.” It would be a lie to say he didn’t take immense satisfaction in the way ZiM’s delicate features pinched with annoyance.

       “ _Oh_  so NOW you were going to-!” He clenched his little fists and  _tsk’d_  theatrically. “ _Typical._ ” He huffed his bangs out of his eyes and planted one fist on his hip. “Well, give thanks to ZiM, dirt-child, I already checked.” He shot Dib a wicked look over his square frames and tapped a sharp claw against his temple. “It’s lodged right between the frontal and parietal lobe in your right hemisphere.” His lips curled back into a cruel grin. “Like a cosmic lobotomy.” He crossed his arms and leaned back against his bike with a smug, self satisfied look. “It does explain why you’re so dumb and  _boring._ ”

       “My heart _stopped_ and you  _wasted time_ poking around at my head?” Dib grit his teeth and growled, fists clenching against the slime covered floor with the sudden, violent urge to  _strangle_ the puny green boy. “I seriously could have DIED, you  _jerk!_ ”

       “You said you wouldn’t let me see your head!” ZiM snapped, then waved away Dib’s accusation with an annoyed eye roll. “And I already told you, I have mastered your primitive CPR technique.” His eyes brightened with the sudden realization. “You owe ZiM your pathetic life twice over now! I suppose I will accept your lifelong servitude in repayment, earth-stink. Feel honoured.”

Oh. Apparently he  _did_  know how to perform actual CPR. He was just being an  _unlovable_   _asshole_  the first time.

Dib leveled his best glower at ZiM and silently cursed the warmth blossoming high on his cheeks and ears at the sudden hazy memory of the shorter boy kneeling at his side and leaning over him. Emergency life saving resuscitation did _not_ count as kissing,  _obviously._ Especially if said emergency life saving resuscitation had been performed by a literal  _alien_  (who was also a  _boy_ ). Now if only his stupid face would get the message.

Great. One more thing to throw on the horrible processing pile for his treacherous brain to torment him with at some ungodly hour of the morning instead of letting him sleep.

\---

       “ _Curses!_ ” Lard Nar hissed and brought both fists down on the completely unresponsive control panel with a ferocious bang. The flash of violent fury fizzled out as quickly as it had erupted with the leader of the Resisty flopping bonelessly back into his command chair and burying his face in his hands. “I can’t believe it, that VLSG was so  _expensive_ …”

       “Aww, it’s ok, you did your best.” Shloonktapooxis was quick to chime in.

       “WHAT is so special about that big-headed mammal,” Lard Nar gestured sharply at the now black screen. “That would attract the attention of both the Meekrob _and_ Irken military?” He tapped his chin thoughtfully. “It didn't  _seem_ to have any sort of notable powers or abilities? Unless it's unusually large cranium is the key…?”

       “Wait, wait, what?” Spleenk twisted in his chair to gaze, perplexed, up at his commander. “I thought the transmissions we tapped into were only Meekrobian? What do the Irkens have to do with anything?”

Lard Nar leveled a flat look down at his four armed crew member.

       “Tell me, Spleenk, did you happen to notice the peculiarly green individual with a PAK riding the obviously modified Earthen vehicle?”

       “Well, yeah.” Spleenk absently rubbed the back of his neck.

       “The one armed with an Irken 315 Santoku AGIL and wearing a standard issue Invader uniform?”

       “Yeah?” Spleenk blinked slowly. Lard Nar sighed and rubbed his temples.

       “That was an Irken Invader.”

Shocked gasps rippled through the bridge. Lard Nar bit back the urge to sigh again. He was doing that thing where he had foolishly assumed the people around him were capable of observing the  _obvious._ What he wouldn’t do to have just a handful more Vortians on board…

       “Wait, isn’t this planet a bit… far flung for Operation Impending Doom?” Lard Nar’s head perked up at Shloonktapooxis’ question. “Maybe the Irkens want to turn it into a vacation resort planet?”

       “No.” The commander quickly cut in. “He risked blowing his cover in front of all those other Earthians to defend the DIB. That must be a part of his mission.” Also Irkens didn’t _go_  on vacation, they worked to serve their Empire from birth until death. Unless they were Tall enough, then every day was pretty much a vacation. Lard Nar squinted down at the unresponsive control panel in thought.

From what they had observed thus far the planet they surreptitiously orbited was actually rather new (at least in comparison to the distant edges of the universe most of the Resisty’s crew hailed from) and it’s current dominant species was even more so. The young race appeared to only be beginning their first baby steps into exploring their closest celestial neighbours.

Which certainly begged the question:

What could such a primitive species smack dab in the middle of ass-fuck  _nowhere_  have  _possibly_ stumbled upon that would catch the interest of  _two_  of the greatest military powers the universe had ever seen?

_What_ in sweet Vort’s name was the DIB?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact: This entire chapter was originally supposed to be one scene in the previous chapter. And I STILL didn't cram everything I had hoped too in here. Whoops. More reveals to come later I guess?  
> 1) Apparently moles aren't rodents... which was news to me! The problem is when I think of a mole I automatically think of a naked mole-rat, which definitely IS a rodent but definitely is NOT a mole. They belong to the order 'Eulipotyphla' which, according to Wikipedia, apparently means "truly fat and blind". So thank you, Wikipedia, this knowledge is a gift.  
> 2) AGIL stands for 'all gas-phase iodine laser'. Thanks again, Wikipedia! Without you I would be forced to only write about stuff I actually know about, and I would still think moles are rodents.  
> 3) Lard Nar thinks the name 'DIB' is a devious acronym for something. He's right, it stands for 'Dumb Innocent Boy'.  
> As always, thank you all for reading and have a lovely day ~(˘▾˘~)


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